Flour Drum

There are days when you want nothing more than to go to town on a bowl of tender beans run through with ham hock, scooped onto a buttery slice of Brickfields toast. But on an indecisive morning what you need is some sort of picnic dish where you can blithely jump from sweet to savoury and back again. This is when you order the Flour Drum breakfast.

We’ve seen plenty of breakfast plates strewn with all the fixings for fancy toast, but here they have a decided a sweet tooth. Not only do you get a little jar of cold pressed orange juice and a bowl of Greek yoghurt capped with rhubarb compote, but there’s also no less than three house-made jam options for your toast. Before you cry, ‘breakfast dessert!’, the line-up also features a semi-soft-boiled egg making a stand for savoury beginnings, but the jams are the fun part.

Of course you could have toast at home, but you probably don’t have a sweet pineapple jam with a roasted, caramel flavour reminiscent of Frosty Fruits in your fridge now, do you? If you don’t go in for super-sweet spreads the pink grapefruit marmalade doesn’t fear the bitter bite of its base fruit. But if you only have room in your life for one jam, make it the bright, sweet kiwi fruit number. It’s a tropical time out on toast.

There’s a lot to like about this new addition to the South King Street scene. The long, open café is highly accessible for prams and wheelchairs; they’re fond of a little window dressing; and we’re digging the Sidney Nolan-esque mural in the back half of the café. They’re flying the flag for local producers, using Blind Roaster Coffee from Marrickville and Country Valley yoghurt from Picton, and service is warm and friendly.

But this isn’t somewhere for a lightning-fast meal and balance is an issue in some of their more involved dishes. The aforementioned beans are hearty, but need something to break up all the pulse protein – a poached egg would work a treat. A breakfast special of mashed fava beans needs a much heavier hand with the seasoning on both beans and the side of polenta chips, and the lemon dressed kale on the side is a little jarring. Stick to the simpler things like a breakfast roll packed with bacon and you’ll do fine.

Sometimes it can feel like South King gets left behind with all the action further north and down on Enmore Road, so we’re all for someone changing up the morning ritual. If that involves jam, juice and a slice of baklava from the sweets counter then that’s a sweet new direction we can follow.